NON-DESTRUCTIVE DETECTION FOR FOREIGN MATERIALS IN FOOD AND AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS USING X-RAY SYSTEM

Quality evaluation for food and agricultural products have always been one of the most elusive problems associated with the handling , processing and marketing in a food plant production. In order to detect physical foreign materials in food and agricultural products, non-destructive techniques have been developed for many years. Application of X-ray system to detect physical foreign materials in food and agricultural products could be considered to be a high potential method. Especially , it is impossible to detect internal physical foreign materials by visual inspections. In this study, it was tried to be applied for two different X-ray devices. Soft X-ray system with CdTe sensor and X-ray CT scanner were evaluated for advantage of the detection of non-meltallic foreign materials in food and agricultural products . Though the soft X-ray is not a high energy radiation, it is possible to detect small different density in a material. The CdTe sensor has a high resolution for t e soft X-ray energy region. The density characteristics of foods and foreign material were expressed region. The density characteristics of foods and foreign materials were expressed as a soft X-ray energy spectrum. The energy spectrum was analyzed by a personal computer with a multi-channel analyzer. X-ray CT scanner can provide visual image and analyze by three dimensional information inside food and agricultural products. The X-ray CT scanner using as a medical equipment was used to detect a foreign material. The density characteristics of food and foreign materials in food were tried to be detected by the threshold value on the basis of the CT numbers. The soft X-ray absorption characteristics for acrylin plates and distilled water were obtained and could be found the possibility of detecting a small physical foreign materials such as a plastic wrapping film , a stone and grasshopper in food and agricultural products.